Our variable skies had cast off their wintry hue, and assumed almost the aspect of summer. Cloud and storm had passed away. Sleet and rain no longer beat in the face of the traveller; and though November was growing old, yet the melancholy month showed himself much more mild and placable in his age than in his youth: there was a bright, warm smile in the sky, and the sun towards midday was actually hot. There was a great deal of activity and bustle in the gardens of Mr. Tracy. The sage old folks in the neighbourhood remarked, that a new broom swept clean; and the head-gardener was certainly seen from day-break till sunset in every part of the extensive grounds, directing the labours of the men under him, and preparing everything against the wintry months that were coming. Mr. Tracy was delighted. For the first time he saw all his own plans proceeding rapidly and energetically; for the gardener, with more sound tact than gardeners usually have, applied himself to execute, alone, what his master proposed or suggested, but took care it should be executed well, and as rapidly as possible. A new spirit seemed to come into the whole house with the new gardener. Everybody, but one, although it was certainly an unpropitious season of the year, seemed to be seized with the mania of gardening. Old General Tracy himself, after having been confined for four or five days to his room, by the consequences of his intimacy with farmer Thorp's bull, which he had at first neglected, but was afterwards compelled to remember, might be seen with a spade in his hand delving with the rest. Mr. Tracy and Emily were constantly here and there in the grounds, conversing with the head-gardener, and laying out plans for immediate or future execution; and the only one who, like the warm beams of summer, seemed to abandon the garden as winter approached, was Mr. Tracy's youngest daughter Rose, whose visits were confined to the morning and the evening, when a task, to which she had accustomed herself from her childhood, and which she had no excuse for neglecting now, called her down to the end of what was called "the ladies' walk." This task was, indeed, a somewhat childish one; namely, to feed a number of beautiful gold and silver fishes collected in a large marble basin, and sheltered from snow and frost by a not very bad imitation of a Greek temple.